Tracy Reese for Sally Hansen

I’m pretty fascinated by the sponsorships / merchandising deals that designers take on. A friend who is a publicist in New York says fashion shows are incredibly expensive and can only be done with sponsorships. So, when you see that Clairol is doing hair and Loreal is doing makeup, you know who paid to put on the show. Another extension of that is nail polish.

You’ll notice in the store that the collection is not specifically marked ‘designer’ or ‘Tracy Reese’. There doesn’t seem to be the big ‘launch’ such as Issac Mizrahi at Target or Hello Kitty at MAC.

The designers supply Sally Hansen with new colors, catchy names and plenty of publicity during their New York fashion week shows. In exchange, Sally Hansen pays the designers a sponsorship fee and provides a team of nail technicians who give models carefully orchestrated manicures and pedicures

Last week they were buy one get one free (BOGO) at Rite Aid drugstores. Below, I’ve paired the colors to reflect the inspiration from her Spring and Pre-Fall 2011 collections (runway photos are from Style.com). This is actually the tenth year that Tracy Reese has collaborated with Sally Hansen.

Malt is a good, old fashioned, neutral

You didn’t expect me to say ‘no’ to a pastel pink, did you? First Kiss.

I love pastels and lavenders on my nails and couldn’t resist Delphinium

My favorite by far is Barracuda. I have so many pastel blues it’s *almost* shameful

Last up is Summer Plum. It seems pretty deep and vampy for a ‘summer’ color. But, I loved the rich tones.

As I noted, I left two shades out a gray and coral. I liked the gray I saw. But, I have several grays that were close enough. And, as I have mentioned before, I personally hate coral.

There is only one display per store with two colors of each item. None of the colors are exactly unique. So you wouldn’t need to go out of your way unless you wanted to say you had the Tracy Reese collection. I will say though that the Complete Salon Manicure formulation is the longest wearing polish I have. But, again, I change mine every two to three days 🙂

So, there you have it. How fashion is influencing your nail polish choices!

Ahh… I am in the middle of my nth attempt at quitting nailbiting. (Haven’t gnawed since May!) But I am a chronic nailbiter, I will probably relapse. In the meantime, to encourage me and reward my progress, I have fallen hard for Gelish!!! Dang, it’s expensive, and I still get a little chipping at the tips (I’ve applied it only a couple of times so far), but I’m optimistic.

I just saw these a couple days ago at my Rite-Aid (mostly gone already!). They just started carrying Essie too. And another local drugstore chain just put out some new Opi collections. I’m loving it all!